Is this what a zombie is?

32. The Little Girl in Prison

Lawyer Luo's private cell was not large and the furnishings were very simple. The moment Jiang Chen entered the cell, his eyes were drawn to a figure.

That wasn't Attorney Luo, but a little girl who looked about seven or eight years old.

Jiang Chen instinctively turned to the warden beside him and questioned, "What's going on?"

The warden looked completely bewildered. "Wh...what's going on?"

"How come there's a little girl in this prison?"

The moment the question left his mouth, Jiang Chen realized something was wrong.

Given the current state of society, even if this little girl really did something that would incur public wrath, it's still a possibility.

The protection law is there, and it's impossible to actually give a heavy sentence, let alone put him in this male prison.

Moreover, upon closer inspection, her appearance is not that of an ordinary person.

The little girl wore an elaborate Gothic black dress with layers of lace that made her already fair skin appear almost translucent, like fine porcelain.

She had long, jet-black hair that reached her waist, and she was holding a rag doll with button eyes sewn on it.

The most bizarre thing was her eyes—a pair of pure, blood-red eyes.

She was incredibly refined and beautiful, but precisely because she was too refined, she was lifeless and lacked any human warmth.

So this little girl isn't a living person at all.

Ordinary people can't see her either.

The warden followed Jiang Chen's gaze, but there was no little girl in the cell. The confusion on his face gradually turned into fear.

"Master... Master, don't scare me!!!"

At that moment, Attorney Luo put down the Braille book in his hand.

He spoke softly to the air, or rather, to the little girl:

"Come back."

The little girl glanced at Jiang Chen with a strange look in her eyes—neither curious nor malicious.

She turned around, took small steps, and obediently walked to Lawyer Luo's side.

Then, under Jiang Chen's gaze, an unbelievable scene unfolded.

The little girl's figure began to fade, and then silently... merged into Lawyer Luo's body.

Everything happened so naturally, as if the little girl was a part of Lawyer Luo's body.

Jiang Chen's current state is like, "Little friend, do you have a lot of questions?"

This blind lawyer is no ordinary person.

And what is that little girl? A ghost or something else?

"It seems you're no ordinary person!"

Attorney Luo countered, "Didn't Master Cat tell you about what happened to me?"

Hmm... this Lawyer Luo actually knows Master Cat.

And judging from their tone, the two seem to be quite familiar with each other.

Jiang Chen slowly closed his eyes, trying hard to restrain himself from swearing, but he still gritted his teeth and used his mind to question Cat Master.

"You two knew each other a long time ago, why didn't you say so sooner?!"

In the corner, Cat rolled his eyes and said confidently.

"I've said it before, I didn't come here entirely for you. You're the one who's prejudiced and insists on being moved."

"As I said, he's a local bigwig. You insisted on looking at his files, so go ahead and look. I don't need to waste my breath explaining it to you. Besides, you'll see it for yourself and have a deeper understanding, won't you?"

"..."

That's much more intuitive!

Jiang Chen gritted his teeth inwardly. What could he possibly say?

This old monster is clearly pretending to be ignorant, and Jiang Chen strongly suspects that it just wants to see him make a fool of himself.

The warden, who was standing nearby, could not hear this telepathic communication. He only saw Jiang Chen and Lawyer Luo, one standing and the other sitting, exchanging cryptic messages that he could not understand at all.

Jiang Chen noticed the warden's embarrassment, and realized that the conversation that was about to begin was not suitable for ordinary people to be present.

He went along with it and said to the warden, "Warden, this is none of your business. You can go ahead and do your work. I'll call you if I need anything."

"Understood, understood, you're busy, you're busy!"

The warden, feeling as if he had been granted a pardon, quickly left this place of trouble, and thoughtfully closed the iron gate behind him before leaving.

"Clang!"

With the iron gate locked, there were no outsiders left, and communication naturally became simple and direct.

Jiang Chen cut to the chase, "Master Cat said you're a local bigwig here and can help find that sorcerer."

Attorney Luo did not answer directly. He stared at Jiang Chen and asked in return, "You surprised me by directly confronting the warden and using their power to access the files."

Jiang Chen shrugged; he didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

"Do people like you and me really need to strictly keep our identities secret?"

"I don't have that much time to waste here. A showdown would give me advantages, allowing me to directly mobilize the prison's secular resources and access all the files from the past seven years."

"This is a hundred times more efficient than me wandering around aimlessly in the middle of the night. Why should I take a detour and be restricted by rigid rules when I can go straight? Since that's the case, why don't I just lay my cards on the table?"

Attorney Luo was silent for two seconds. What Jiang Chen said was not wrong.

"It's not that we have to keep it a secret, but since we're both considered wild awakened beings, it's best to keep it as secret as possible for security reasons."

"This new brain...it's really useful."

Jiang Chen has no mental baggage, and he pursues efficiency and a pragmatic mindset, which allows him to break free from the rules, while Attorney Luo confines himself to the rules.

The two ways of thinking are different, but the goal is the same.

"Three years ago, when I first entered prison, I noticed something was wrong here. Although the dead were all prisoners, they didn't deserve pity and all deserved to die."

"But I was trying to find out who was behind it all, and I accidentally exposed myself during the investigation."

His voice deepened as he slowly recounted this protracted war that had lasted for three years.

"From that day on, the sorcerer stopped doing it himself and instead released the vengeful spirit he had created, which was the giant cat you met last night, to secretly test and wear me down."

"While I was searching for his identity, I was also constantly cultivating my spirit to fight against it."

"For the past three years, we have been keeping each other in the dark, looking for each other to make a mistake so that we can strike decisively. Neither of us dares to make a move easily."

Listening to his narration, Jiang Chen finally understood why, starting three years ago, the sorcerer had handed over the dirty work to the giant cat.

It wasn't that he didn't want to take action himself, but with Attorney Luo restraining him, he dared not do it himself, fearing that he would expose himself and allow Attorney Luo to seize his weakness and eliminate him.

"So, you know who he is?"

"It's uncertain, but we've narrowed it down to a range; he should be in area C."